The robotics club was not content with last season’s results, but is making improvements for a more successful year according to adviser Trevor Paulson.

Paulson attributed the poor performance at last year’s event to mechanical issues.

“We ran into technical problems with parts of the robot,” he said. “We were in the bottom five teams.”

According to junior co-captain Francis Thelen, the team’s primary concern is raising awareness of the club.

“We’re trying to recruit more people,” he said. “We want people to know it’s not all about building robots. We want to reach out to more companies (for funding) so we can start next year with a solid foundation.”

The team members find out what functions their robot has to perform Jan. 4, and then have until March 27 to create the machine for this year’s competition.

Until they find out what the robot has to do, the team members will spend their meetings doing housekeeping work, according to Paulson.

Paulson said the team hopes to construct the robot quickly, in order to have more time to tweak issues and practice.

“Our goal is to get the robot built in the first three to four weeks so we have time to do testing and training for a week before the competition,” he said.

The club expects to have around 20 members, but hopes for closer to 30. Students can sign up by talking to Paulson.